


black tears on your cheek / i want them in my bed

by justlikeswitchblades



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Absent Parents, Canon Universe, F/F, POV Alternating, Self-Esteem Issues, The Gentleman | Babenon Dosal/Marion Lavorre | Ruby of the Sea - Freeform, Thoreau Lionett - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27746029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justlikeswitchblades/pseuds/justlikeswitchblades
Summary: [spoilers for key points in episodes 85, 92 through 95]Jester looks for the best in people, and she knows she can be naive at times, but she is not so gullible that she wants to forgive the man in front of her who calls himself Beau’s father. He doesn’tdeserveto call himself Beau’s father.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Kudos: 29





	black tears on your cheek / i want them in my bed

**Author's Note:**

> i don't want to call this one-sided beaujester, because jester /does/ love her friends, but the crush is more obviously coming from beau in this one
> 
> a combination of [this shirt](https://www.instagram.com/p/CGp70IfJIKy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link%5D), me imagining beau in said shirt because new jersey and kamordah are both wine country, marisha being genuinely teary-eyed in episode 92, and [this song](https://open.spotify.com/album/10fSu9RLAJlasIup4ylHPM?si=PU3IJ3s5TMCPUMFJlBrOHw%5D), where the title comes from

Jester had grown up with stories of her father. Sure, she had never known him, but he was still very much alive in the stories her mother told, a handsome blue-skinned man who loved her dearly, left with the promise of bringing home a fortune, only to never come home to Marion at all. Her mother never spoke of him with any ill will, not that Jester could discern as a child, nor when she asked of him as she grew older. Marion never told her to stop asking about her father; her face would always fall into a fond smile, or even a grin, the corners of her eyes crinkling with laughter especially whenever a young Jester demanded a _new_ story of her father. To Marion, Babenon was not a fairy tale. There was a limited supply of stories about him to draw upon; she may abbreviate elements of some to make them appropriate for her daughter, but she wouldn’t make up fanciful fictions about him. Not when the result of him was very much alive and breathing right in front of her. He had left her, her letters to him unanswered, but he couldn’t have left her with a broken heart, not when he had given her the gift of Jester, perhaps the very best part of him. 

Jester had known that The Gentleman was her father from the moment she met him. How could he not have been? There certainly was the possibility of _other_ blue men out there, but she knew. She just needed him to admit to it. Now that he has, she isn’t quite sure what to do with it. It’s a relief, on one hand, to learn that he had never known about her. To know that he hadn’t abandoned her and her mama out of malice. It’s frustrating, but she understands on some level, even though she doesn’t want to acknowledge it, that he is far too deep in this web of crime and shady business to return to a normal life. Whatever a “normal” life would be. If she had grown up with her father in her life, she wouldn’t have met the Traveler. She wouldn’t have met the Mighty Nein. Living happily ever after...well, it just seems _boring_ now. So, for that, she can forgive her father.

Jester knows she can be naive at times, and she looks for the best in people, but she is not so gullible that she wants to forgive the man in front of her who calls himself Beau’s father. He doesn’t _deserve_ to call himself Beau’s father, with the way she’s standing in front of him, hands curled into fists, but with a quake in her shoulders, her voice betraying the smallest shake as she addresses him, her eyes glassy and rimmed with red. Jester can feel the tension in the room, the way every member of the Nein would deck this man on Beau’s behalf, almost happily. Almost. Caduceus probably wouldn’t punch him, but even he looks pretty judgemental, considering the fact that he’s, you know, Caduceus. He probably has something to say about how trading anger for anger’s sake isn’t worth it, and he’s probably right on some grand, philosophical level. But it’s a burning, searing anger at a pathetic man whose pathetic actions turned Beau into the person she is today. It’s conflicting and contradictory, but it feels justified. Beau should be the first to punch him in the face. And if Beau doesn’t want the rest of them to punch her father, at least Jester can imagine Mollymauk spitting in his face.

-

Of course it takes Beau a moment to believe that Jester won Isharnai over with a single cupcake. Not even a single cupcake, she later learns, and she’s not in the best headspace to learn she’s worth the equivalent of half of a moldy cupcake. Plus some spells, and some magical sugar that made the spell Jester cast more effective, or whatever. She offered to give up her livelihood, everything she had worked for as an Expositor, and the Lionett name, though she sure hopes that isn’t worth much. She offered to walk away from the Nein, and she was beat out by a cupcake.

But after being caught off-guard by the initial revelation, it clicks into place that of course she was beaten out by a cupcake. It’s Jester, after all, practically a cupcake personified with her poofy skirts and her brilliant smile, far sweeter and brighter than any frosting Beau’s seen on a pastry. She’s not in a great place to reconcile that truth, and feels even less deserving of being in Jester’s company, even though she’s vaguely aware that the worthlessness she feels is made up in her own mind. It’s a side-effect of marinating in the muck and the misery of her hometown, but that starts to let up once Caleb, who deprecates himself like it's a paying job, starts giving her worried looks.

Only Jester could’ve pulled something like that off, with her endless charm, deceptive in the way eating too much sugar can make your teeth and stomach ache. And thinking about that makes her fall in the complete opposite direction, spiraling quietly, hopefully fucking inperceptably, back into this growing abyss of a crush of hers. She knows what to do when she wants to have sex with a woman; she’s less sure when her brain thinks about everything other than sex. She keeps thinking about how they’re going out to sea soon, and how Jester’s skin starts freckling purple when she gets too much sun. Little shit like that, like she’s looking at Jester through a magnifying glass. She tries to not think about it too much, at least not when everyone’s awake. And as wary as she is about confiding in Nott, at least Nott has been to jail before, and ought to know that snitches get stitches.

-

Jester is sitting on the jungle floor, the finger of one hand wound tightly into her hair below her horns, the other twisting the white tassels and pale quilting at the bottom of her cloak, as if spinning two places at the ends of her will help her unwind the puzzle of her god revealing himself to not actually be a god. Beau sits down cross-legged opposite her, a few patches of vaguely trampled vegetation between them, arms folded over her chest. Flecks of sunshine dance on Jester’s clothing, filtering down through the canopy above.

“So, fuck that guy, right?”

“Well, you know…” Jester shrugs, and her shoulders slump, her hands falling into her lap with a pout. “He’s my best friend. It’s not like he’s different, he’s just...a little different from who I thought he was.”

“That’s pretty generous of you, Jes. But, sure. He’s just different.”

“He is! I mean, he’s the _Traveler!_ He’s not like your dad who--oh. Oh no, Beau. I didn’t mean it like that--”

“No, by all means.” Beau waves her hand. “Point taken, dude’s an asshole. And like, maybe I’ll forgive him someday, because I’m the better person and all, but it’s not a race. Not one I’m trying to win anytime soon.” There’s a pause, and Beau shrugs her shoulders, trying to wrestle the tension that coils up out of her body. Her voice is a shade softer when she speaks up again. “Maybe when TJ is older. Old enough to understand, but not be brainwashed by them. By him.” Jester nods along with her words, her usual energy replaced momentarily by a more serene understanding.

“Sorry, I made this about me.” Beau coughs. “We were talking about the Traveler, right? Who you don’t want to think of as a giant douche?”

“He came to me because things were getting out of hand for him.” Jester sighs, casting a look down the path back towards the intricate, glittering doorway Artagan left in his departure. “That means he trusts me. I mean, I think it’s still pretty cool.” She segues, raising her eyebrows and grinning at Beau, still so easily caught up in the mystery of the fey being’s magic and power. “Like, other people can only get yes or no answers from their gods, and even though the Traveler isn’t a _god_ god, I can still have complete conversations with him!”

“That is pretty cool.”

“I’m--” Jester reverts to a frustrated expression, her cheeks puffing out and slowly deflating with an exaggerated, sputtering exhale. “I’m not sorry about calling your dad an asshole. But, you know, I wish he wasn’t. I think Molly would absolutely fuck him up for treating tarot cards and fortune telling and you that way.”

“Yeah.” Beau rolls her neck, smoothing a hand over the eye tattoo on the back of it, and Jester catches a glimpse of gem dust sparkling. She makes a note to remind Beau that she’s pretty, or handsome, or whatever adjective Beau likes to be called best later. It’s refreshing to see the sunlight on her skin, especially after so much time in the artificial lights in Rosohna, in a way Jester can’t quite name. “He probably would take the piss out of him, physically and emotionally.” She looks to Jester, a smile curling at the corner of her lips, a glint in her eye. “But I have another tiefling nearby to help me with that in Molly’s absence, right?”

Jester grins back and hops up, clutching at the corners of her dress again, her eyes sparkling with excitement this time.

“You do.”


End file.
